Mashaba denies claims ActionSA and DA concocted rape charges against Tau

ActionSA party leader Herman Mashaba has poured cold water over allegations made by expelled ActionSA member and former Tshwane MMC Abel Tau the party colluded with the Democratic Alliance (DA) to concoct charges of rape against him.

Tau was expelled from the party in November last year after allegations of sexual misconduct against his wife’s friend; he said the charges were laid in a bid to remove him from the party.

“I can’t respond to fiction; these things are happening in his head. For me, I would request his family to go and look for psychiatric help for him. He needs urgent psychiatric treatment because he has things in his head. He is a sick person and something has gone wrong,” Mashaba said.

ActionSA formation ‘a good scam’

Speaking to The Citizen on Tuesday after launching his newly formed party called United Africa Transformation in Pienaarspoort, Pretoria, and Tau said the “formation of the ActionSA is a good scam by Mashaba just like his hair products Black Like Me.”

Tau said while they are only allegations at this stage, the rape charges against him were politically motivated.

“There’s nothing called attempted rape in South Africa, it’s sexual assault. It is coined precisely this way so it gives weight towards the political end which it was aimed at,” Tau said.

“The party went swiftly without necessarily talking to me. I have taken their case to the high court for review, it is absolute madness how they came to the conclusion they did. It was a process formulated to get to what they needed to do.”

ALSO READ: Abel Tau won’t return to ActionSA despite legal action, launches new political party

Tau also accused a man from ActionSA (known to The Citizen) of asking him to “hook up” Herman Mashaba’s cousins with tenders from the Tshwane metro.

“He is Herman Mashaba’s right-hand man. I have it as evidence which I will reveal in due course. I have recordings of him where he explicitly tells me there’s a bounty on my head,” Tau said.

He said he was in this mess because of his brand of uncompromising politics which saw him being cast away from power in the metro.

“ActionSA has taken a posture like the Democratic Alliance (DA) which wants a society where the elites are taken care of and for those reasons, people like me tend to be a problem,” he claimed.

“From where I stand, my removal could have been a DA-orchestrated plot but it played well with ActionSA, especially for the kind of politics they want to do.”

Why Tau was fired

Mashaba, however, dismissed Tau’s allegations saying Tau was fired from the party because they did not want to be associated with a person of Tau’s character.

“There’s an official criminal case against him for the allegation of rape for his wife’s friend. He went through the normal disciplinary processes within our party and based on that, as a party we don’t want to be associated with such characters,” he said.

ALSO READ: Abel Tau maintains he is not guilty of rape, takes legal action against ActionSA

“If people dream about something and they take it to be real. If these allegations are true then he is most welcome to present them. South Africa knows my stunts on corruption and I am going to cover for anyone or I won’t ask someone to cover for me.”

“He is most welcome to report the matter because it is a serious matter. If there is such a case then he must go to the police and if not then he is complicit. Everything else he says is academic and I do not think I must respond to it.”